The Flesh Merchant (A Dark Fantasy)

One man’s struggle to keep his power might lead to his own undoing.

Daveed, son of Daveed, was once a man of great power. The kind of power that guarantees a life of ease. A life of convenience.

That power carried a great cost. Others suffered, and Daveed was happy for it.

Then the source of his power is stolen, his easy life snatched away. Daveed must find the thief, and steal his power back.

Will his desparate struggle to regain power lead him to success? Or ruin?

PLUS! You get an extra gift! Included in this book is one more story! Continue reading to find out more:

Harnessing Fire Magic (Witchy Elementals): by Viivi James. Learn to harness the magical and passionate power of Fire, in your own way!

Most books concerning magic and the elements will lay out exactly how to call the elements or bend them to your will. This book is unique in that it will tell you the components you can use to create your own craft and call the elements in a way that is personal to you.

Viivi James will tell you of deities, and even pop culture icons, you can use to harness Fire within your witchy workings.

If you want to connect with this element more deeply, this book is a must in your magical library.

You’ll find the following topics in this in-depth book on paganism and witchcraft:

Excerpt:

Daveed, son of Daveed, laid in the summer heat. It was too hot, and yet he knew that it was not more than half an hour until it would cool, and when the sun finally dipped under the horizon, it would grow cold — for that reason, he laid in the summer heat with his blankets at his neck and his entire body sweating.

He was nude save for a single ring, plain and unadorned, with the appearance of glass as black as the darkest desert night. Some men might have chosen not to keep such a ring if they had the opportunity. Many men chose to cross the street on the other side after seeing it. An ill omen, they would think, even if it were not a danger to them, which it was.

Daveed thought of his father, and he knew that Daveed the elder would have certainly cast it away. It was that weakness, he thought, that had left them both in the gutters. It was that weakness that had seen Daveed the younger orphaned. But Daveed Daveed’s son, Servant of Piety, may he stand in light, was stronger than them. And that was why he ignored the icy chill that slithered up his arm, the corruption that could only be fought through careful study and exorcising the demons that were both blessing and curse inside the ring.

He moaned out his displeasure to the room, and a young, buxom woman with skin burnt brown from the sun rose in the heat, drawing herself under the covers with her master. But the master of the house was in no mood for women. Their touch was nothing more than a dull ache to him now, and food turned to ash in his mouth.

It would only be a few more days until his power over the jewel of the South, Ash’ara, was complete, and he knew that nothing but a truly dire misstep would stop him now. It consumed his thoughts, his days of waiting. Completely enthralled by a single goal that was a foregone conclusion.

The girl pressed her breasts against him, and for a moment he almost felt the stirrings of arousal.

“Go, Miryam. I don’t have any need for you.” He pushed against her, pushing her away. With time, sleep would come. The sooner it came, the sooner that he would be past his brief moment of vulnerability. But the young woman did not leave.

Daveed could feel the anger rising in his stomach, a hot bilious hate that almost burned away the ice in his hand and kept the fear at bay. And then he felt the knife press against his most vulnerable spot.

“Daveed, son of Daveed. I’ll be going now. Do not try to follow me.”

The merchant nodded dumbly. Being robbed was a part of the business; there was no reason to invite danger simply for pride’s sake. Daveed the younger knew that instinctively. Once the ink dried on the paper guaranteeing his part of every caravan coming into the city, this girl would hardly pose a difficulty. He would let her go for now.

When he felt the iciness ebbing away from his numb fingers, she was already out the door. And then Daveed, son of Daveed, servant of Piety, knew that he had to stop her now. Time would not wait for him to bluff his way through the rest of his business. And these were not the sort of men who were bluffed.

He pulled on only enough clothing to be decent, and in the southern cities that was not an exceptional amount, hastily tying ties and pulling toggles through throngs to keep it all together without bothering to stop in his descent of the stairs. He did not shout for help. Daveed had never asked for help, and to do so now would be tantamount to ringing a dinner bell for those in the city.

Though it had been years since he had needed to fire it, the rifle felt right when he pulled it from the wall. He did not doubt for a moment that when the time came, he would not miss. And that was why the merchant-lord, Daveed, Son of Daveed, strained his now-spindly body to its breaking point wearing little more than a pair of breeches and a half-closed waistcoat.

He knew that there were some he had known in his youth that would have tried to convince the slave to stop her running, to give up what was rightfully his. There were men he had known who would have managed it, as well, who would have commanded such admiration and respect that the fear of reprisal would have melted away as soon as he promised not to pursue it.

But Daveed knew that he was not that man. He had made his empire through measured cruelty and hard edges that could not be uncrossed. Either he would lose the ring, and with it all his position, or Miryam would not see the morning. Daveed did not dare gamble taking the shot from this distance. A single unlucky turn at the wrong moment, and no amount of marksmanship would save him.

The path the slave-girl took through the twilight-lit streets was circuitous, and she was unencumbered. Though he had once been a fighter of some merit, those years were long-since behind Daveed, yet he ran now on the boundless energy of a man to whom exhaustion means death, the idea of slowing as foreign to him as the place his ring was forged.